Method and System for Ordering and Producing a Customized Product

ABSTRACT

A method and system is provided for ordering and producing customized merchandise such as, but not limited to, a protective cover for a portable electronic device. Generally speaking, the system for creating a customized product includes a cellular telephone having a display screen, an application for selecting an image to be printed onto a product, the application being loaded onto the cellular telephone, a server for storing the selected image to be printed on the product, the server being remotely accessible by the cellular telephone, and a printing device responsive to the server for printing the selected image on the product. A general method for creating a customized product includes the steps of loading an application to a cellular phone, wherein the application is executable by the cellular phone, executing the application through operation of the cellular phone, using the application to select an image to be printed onto a product, and printing the selected image on the product at a location remote from the cellular phone. The printing device is preferably a dye-sublimation printing device. Further, the selected image may be initially stored at one of either a remote server or on the cellular phone itself.

RELATED APPLICATION

The present application claims the filing priority of, and incorporatesherein by reference, Provisional Application No. 61/233,147, titled“Method And System For Ordering And Producing A Customized Product,”filed on Aug. 12, 2009.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to order entry systems, and in particularto a system and method for ordering and producing customized merchandisesuch as, but not limited to, a protective cover for a portableelectronic device.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Ordering products on-line has been a staple of the World economy forsome time. Customization of products, if it can be called such, has beenfairly limited to the selection of colors and occasionally has includeda choice of materials. Customizing left little to the imagination of theconsumer.

Further, for customizing products it has been necessary to have acomputer and internet access or a designated kiosk. In the firstinstance, even with the prevalence of computers and free Wi-Fi Internetareas in stores, public buildings and restaurants, many people may nothave access to secure computers for ordering products on-line. As forthe use of a kiosk, such systems have little security or privacy and areonly convenient if one is located in proximity to a consumer.

The invention of the present application addresses the need for asecure, private and convenient system for customizing and orderingproducts. The present invention overcomes these and many other problemsassociated with personalizing products, such as a protective case for anelectronic device.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

There is disclosed herein an improved system and method for producingand ordering a customized product, such as a protective cover for aportable electronic device (e.g., a phone, camera, PDA, etc.) whichavoids the disadvantages of prior devices while affording additionalstructural and operating advantages.

Generally speaking, embodiments of the system for creating a customizedproduct comprise a cellular telephone having a display screen, anapplication for selecting an image to be printed onto a product, theapplication being loaded onto the cellular telephone, a server forstoring the selected image to be printed on the product, the serverbeing remotely accessible by the cellular telephone, and a printingdevice responsive to the server for printing the selected image on theproduct.

In an embodiment, the printing device is a dye-sublimation printingdevice. Further, the selected image may be initially stored at one ofeither a remote server or on the cellular phone itself.

As to a method for creating a customized product, embodiments generallycomprise the steps of loading an application to a cellular phone,wherein the application is executable by the cellular phone, executingthe application through operation of the cellular phone, using theapplication to select an image to be printed onto a product, andprinting the selected image on the product at a location remote from thecellular phone.

These and other aspects of the invention can be more readily understoodfrom a reading of the following detailed description accompanied by theappended drawing figures.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention may be better understood with reference to the followingdrawings. The components in the drawings are not necessarily to scale,emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of theinvention. In the drawings, like reference numbers designatecorresponding parts throughout.

FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of a system in accordance with thepresent invention;

FIG. 2 is a partial simplified process flow diagram depicting a methodof using the system of FIG. 1 wherein the process provides designselections comprising a seasonal collection gallery, a customize photogallery and an artist collection gallery;

FIG. 3 is a simplified process flow diagram of the customized photogallery that is provided by a user selecting the customize photo galleryselection of FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a simplified process flow diagram of the artist collectiongallery that is provided by a user selecting the artist collectiongallery selection of FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a simplified process flow diagram of various filters that canbe applied to an image such as the photo taken in the process of FIG. 3;

FIG. 6 is a simplified process flow diagram of video image options thatcan be provided by the system of FIG. 1 via a video selection optionprovided by the process of FIG. 2; and,

FIGS. 7 and 8 are various screen shots of archived images that can beprovided by the system of FIG. 1 via an archive selection optionprovided by the process of FIG. 2.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The following description of detailed embodiments is for exemplifyingthe principles and advantages of the invention. Unless otherwise statedherein, the following detailed description is not to be taken in any wayas presenting limitations on the scope of the invention. Further, whilethe invention is largely described and shown in the appended drawings asa protective case for a phone, it should be understood that other suchproducts, such as electronic protective and decorative cases, personaldecorative items (e.g., jewelry), household items, novelty items, andmuch more, could provide the necessary product for customization inaccordance with the invention of the present application.

Turning to FIG. 1, a schematic for the general system and process forcustomized ordering and a product customization system in accordancewith the present invention is depicted. Reference numbers used withinFIG. 1 correspond to the following elements:

Reference Number Element 10 System 12 Cellular Telephone(s) 14Bi-Directional Communication Link(s) 16 Cellular Telephone Base Station22 Internet 24 Remote Server(s) 28 Product Imprinting Machine 30Finished ProductAll other reference numbers used herein refer to components illustratedin the remaining drawing figures.

There is shown in FIG. 1 a system 10 in accordance with the presentinvention. The system 10 can include, but is not necessarily limited to,a plurality of conventional cellular telephones 12, each having adisplay that depicts ordering information provided by remote server(s)24 via a conventional connection methodology comprising a conventionalcellular communication link(s) 14, a conventional cellular telephonebase station 16, and Internet 22.

The telephones 12 can be, for example, smart cellular telephones such asthe IPHONE smart cellular telephone by Apple, Inc., Cupertino, Calif.,the BLACKBERRY smart cellular telephone by Research in Motion, Ltd.,Waterloo, Canada, and the DROID phone manufactured by Motorola, Inc.,Schaumburg, Ill. As such, cellular telephone(s) 12 are conventionalelectronic devices for placing and receiving telephone calls over aconventional cellular telephone network. In addition, cellulartelephone(s) 12 include conventional hardware and software fordownloading and executing software applications on the telephone viaremote server(s) 24.

Turning to FIG. 3, the cellular telephone 12 has a software applicationloaded thereon in a conventional manner. The cellular telephone 12 alsoincludes a conventional touch screen display or the like for selecting,and thus initiating execution of the software application via remoteserver(s) 24.

By executing the application, a main application screen 210 is providedon the display of the cellular telephone 12. The main screen 210includes selection areas or objects 212 whereby a user can select in aconventional manner various options in ordering, and thus customizing,the offered product or merchandise. For example, a user can selectoptions offered via a seasonal image collection gallery, an artist imagecollection gallery, or a customized photo gallery. In yet anotherembodiment, a user can also select from other galleries maintained onserver(s) 24 (FIG. 1) such as a public gallery. For purposes of thepresent disclosure, such collections of images are considered databases.

In FIG. 3, the customizing photo gallery selection process can begin bythe application enabling a camera associated with the cellulartelephone, whereby a user can take a picture by selecting an area 312 onthe touch screen of the cellular telephone. Next, the user is offered,via the display, to preview the image taken 314 by the camera andposition the photo on the merchandise or product to be ordered bysliding the image over a second image, that being of the merchandiseitself or a reasonable representation thereof. The user may then bepermitted to tilt a rendering 318 of the customized merchandise orproduct via tilt buttons or the like provided on the touch screen. Inaddition, the user can apply various filters to the image, such as thoseshown in FIG. 5, by selecting various buttons or the like provided onthe touch screen. Once the user desires to purchase the customizedmerchandise, the user can select a button 320 for purchasing the item,wherein the user is provided with prompts for entering information tocomplete the purchase transaction.

Turning to FIG. 4, the artist collection gallery selection can begin bythe application providing images for a user to flip through imagesmaintained on server(s) 24. Once the user finds an image to print on themerchandise or product, the user can select the image by touching a“button” for purchasing the customized item. In response, theapplication provides the user with prompts for entering information(e.g., payment and shipping information) to complete the transaction.The cellular telephone 12 may also have a stored collection of imagesfrom which a selection can be made and uploaded to the server(s) 24.

Returning to FIG. 2, a user can also be provided with a video selectionand/or an archive selection. As shown in FIG. 6, the video selection caninclude options wherein a user records a video via the cellulartelephone 12 or other recording means which might allow the video to beuploaded to the cellular telephone, and the user can then vary theframes of the video for printing on the merchandise or product. Forinstance, the size of each frame of the video can be modified wherein,via a slide bar or the like, the user can scale the size of each framein the video, the sequence of the frames in the video can be changed andthe clarity of image associated with the frames can be modified.

As previously indicated above, a user can also be provided with accessto various archives of images (i.e., image databases) provided onservers 24 (FIG. 24) for selection and printing on the merchandise. Theimages of these archives can be categorized in any number of ways. Forexample, there may be image databases organized by themes, e.g., party,music, education, etc., or by main subject matter, e.g., images of dogs,images of cats, images of family, etc., or events, e.g., holidays,vacations, etc. and so on. Some images may be categorized in more thanone database.

Returning to FIG. 1, the order placed by the user may then be stored onserver(s) 24 and eventually downloaded for processing by an automateddye-sublimation printing machine to print the selected image onto themerchandise in a manner well-known by those of skill in the art and aprocess well-described in several U.S. and foreign patents and publishedapplications, including U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 2008/0043288,2007/0039682 and 2006/0028531, each incorporated herein by reference. Inan embodiment, the merchandise or product can be a protective case for acellular telephone such as that shown and described in co-pendingapplication Ser. No. 12/855,311, titled “Two-Piece Protective CarryingCase” filed concurrently with the present application and assigned tothe Assignee of present application, the disclosure of which isincorporated herein by reference. Thus, in this embodiment, the finishedcustomized product 30 is a case or cover for a cellular telephone withthe selected image printed thereon.

It should be emphasized that the above-described embodiments of thepresent invention, particularly, any “preferred” embodiments, arepossible examples of implementations merely set forth for a clearunderstanding of the principles for the invention. Many variations andmodifications may be made to the above-described embodiment(s) of theinvention without substantially departing from the spirit and principlesof the invention. All such modifications are intended to be includedherein within the scope of this disclosure and the present invention,and protected by the following claims.

1. A system for creating a customized product comprising: a cellular telephone having a display screen; an application for selecting an image to be printed onto a product, the application being loaded onto the cellular telephone; a server for storing the selected image to be printed on the product, the server being remotely accessible by the cellular telephone; and a printing device responsive to the server for printing the selected image on the product.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the product is a protective cover for a portable electronic device.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the product is a protective cover for a non-electronic device.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein the product is a personal decorative accessory.
 5. The system of claim 4, wherein the personal decorative accessory is jewelry.
 6. The system of claim 5, wherein the jewelry is a bracelet.
 7. The system of claim 1, further comprising an image database stored on the server, the image being selected from the image database.
 8. The system of claim 1, further comprising an image database stored on the Internet, the image being selected from the image database.
 9. The system of claim 1, further comprising an image database stored on the cellular phone, the image being selected from the image database.
 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the printing device is a sublimation printing device.
 11. A method for creating a customized product, the method comprising the steps of: loading an application to a cellular phone, wherein the application is executable by the cellular phone; executing the application through operation of the cellular phone; using the application to select an image to be printed onto a product; and printing the selected image on the product at a location remote from the cellular phone.
 12. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of accessing an image database from the cellular phone before selecting an image to be printed, wherein the image is selected from the image database.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the image database is stored on the Internet.
 14. The method of claim 12, wherein the image database is stored on a remote server.
 15. The method of claim 12, wherein the image database is stored on the cellular phone.
 16. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of selecting a product to customize before the step of using the application to select an image.
 17. The method of claim 11, wherein the product is a protective cover for an electronic device.
 18. The method of claim 11, wherein the product is a decorative personal item.
 19. The method of 11, further comprising the step of manipulating the selected image to create a personalized image, and the step of printing the selected image comprises the step of printing the personalized image.
 20. The method of claim 19, wherein the step of manipulating the selected image comprises the step of using at least one image editing tool selected from the group consisting of cropping, stretching, rotating, filtering, coloring, scaling, morphing and any combination thereof.
 21. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of printing the image comprises sublimation printing. 